This brief defines forgiveness and then explains the difficulties facilitators may encounter when teaching forgiveness in marriage and relationship (MRE) education classes. Strategies that can be shared with couples are listed and include: reflect on your mutual behaviors during the day and focus on actions that are life-giving and kind, spend little time reflecting on […]
Designed for marriage practitioners, this brief explains the influence of maturity on a person’s ability to truly commit to a relationship for life and understand that commitment implies giving up all other partner choices. The impact of maturity on the ability to forgive, to take personal responsibility, and to communicate effectively is also discussed, and […]
Designed for marriage practitioners, this brief explains the importance of trust in relationships and offers strategies for teaching the value of trust to couples. The keys to trust are explained and include investing time in each other, reliability, understanding, sacrifice, and thankfulness.
This brief explains that faith-based marriage promotion and education programs incorporate tenets of religious faith into operating principles regarding issues of marriage and family life. Key components of the programs are described and specific programs are profiled, including: Marriage Savers, Catholic Engaged Encounter, PAIRS, PREP, Reconciling God’s Way, the Third Option, the Caring Couples Network, […]
This brief lists resources available to assist healthy marriage programs in delivering and enhancing services to Hispanic couples and families. Information is provided on national organizations and State and local Healthy Marriage Initiatives and coalitions. Excerpts are then provided from various working papers developed by the Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative to support program administrators as […]
This report summarizes the proceedings of a conference held at the Airlie Conference Center in Warrenton, Virginia, October 5-7, 2009, that brought together 35 leaders and practitioners from the youth development and relationship education fields to discuss the needs of disadvantaged youth and the capacity of the field to deliver relationship education to this population. […]
This brief cites research that indicates children who grow up in healthy married, two-parent families do better on a host of outcomes than those who do not, and that many social problems affecting children, families, and communities could be prevented if more children grew up in healthy, married families. The federal Healthy Marriage Initiative is […]
This fact sheet describes the federal Community Healthy Marriage Initiative, an initiative designed to help couples who choose marriage develop the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain healthy marriages. Eight essential characteristics of a healthy marriage are listed, an overview of marriage education is provided, and the benefits of marriage education are discussed.
The Welfare Peer TA Network sponsored a multi-State TA event on July 15-16, 2003, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This event was co-coordinated with Public Strategies, the public relations firm that manages the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. The Administration for Children and Families’ Region VI, VII and IX Offices provided additional support, ensuring this event met State […]
This research project was conducted as part of the evaluation for the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. In 1999 Governor Frank Keating announced the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, with the objective of reducing the divorce rate in Oklahoma by 1/3 by the year 2010. One aim of the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative is to change the culture of support […]